I dont think I can do this anymore

You’re an incredibly strong person to have gone through so much and still be standing! I hope you recognise the amazing example you’re setting your children.

 

How can that be done in a public place without being arrested? I'm genuinely interested and stunned and I've suspected my husband of this before, but have dismissed it as impossible, so I would love to know how!

 

This is so true, my husband has NO IDEA of the pain and suffering I go through every single day, even when things are apparently 'happy'. I have a question for you: Do you think there are men out there not affected by this, seeing as the problem with modern tech is SO widespread. I'm beginning to think it would be impossible to find a man who doesn't have this problem and I mean that.

 

Ah yes, I think my husband has used many a public bathroom, I feel stresses every time he want to go to the bathroom when we're out. Thank you for the reply!

 

That coat closet thing breaks my heart <3

 

Absolutely there are men who do not have this problem! My dad is one of them as well as many uncles and cousins. I have two male friends I’ve known since I was 4 , one is definitely a porn addict and the other is not. It’s easy to tell really. I have a nephew who is an addict as well as alcoholic. Once you’ve lived with one for a long time it’s like you get a radar for it! At least for me anyway.,

 

I feel like I have a radar for it myself, but how do we really know? Your dad (who must be lovely to you, aww) your cousins etc, I desperately WANT to believe that you're right (that's why I asked your opinion) but I'm sure that no-one I know would be aware of my husbands addiction, he is sooo charming to everyone else. He appears to be successful, very handsome and very tall, gentle, caring and thoughtful but the reality is that he has a completely neglected wife and, still I suspect although he denies it, spends the majority of his S energy standing in a bathroom with his pants around his ankles spaffing what should represent our love into a sink.

I also think that the vast majority of women out there have no idea how *big* a problem this is and this is why so many get away with it for so long. Most women seem to be oblivious to the obvious all around them.

I do hope you're right though, thank you. I would love to have a man one day that wasn't affected by this.

 

I think it’s going to be more difficult to find in the 30 and under group. They are growing up with the belief that it’s no big deal. The older men though, they didn’t grow up with internet. I point out to my husband the men at our gym who I believe 100% are and then the ones who aren’t. It’s the way they carry themselves, the way they act towards women, the way they look! Idk, I trust my gut. My daughter brought home a boyfriend and I told her he was. Turns out I was right and she caught him after 9 months. No one would guess my husband was, but he has changed so much in 21/2years of recovery that people have commented. No one knows he’s an addict but they have noticed he has changed!

 

I'm also baffled by the women who don't seem to care. Cannot wrap my mind around it. The more I read the more convinced I am it's just no good for anyone on any level.

I feel sad for our children.

 

This is what I have learned for myself as well.

 

Frustrating that we can't be liberated AND not continued to be used as objects (I can't see porn as anything other than using women). Seems like a completely self imposed limitation. We have the power to carry and bear children, we should be able to experience our sexuality AND demand fidelity from our spouses, complete fidelity. To me they've got it wrong because porn is just perpetuating bad sex and conditioning men to continue to use women and treat them like nothing - they still get the "good" end of the deal (we know it's the bad end but they don't). Seems like it needs to swing around where the message is out that to have truly great sex there is connection. Feel like I'm floundering in making my point. Wish we could be sexually free, wear whatever clothing we want, without it having to make men want sex all time. Wish they would hurry up and get control of their brains already.

 

This resonates with me in my attempt to heal myself. I first find myself reducing myself to these. I already had the conditioning of growing up when models could be only 2 things - waif thin or almost waif thin but with curves still. I can't undo that conditioning to the point that just this week I have been shopping on gap and my mind is blown at there being heavy, like really heavy, models. But now with my husband's issues, even with him doing great in recovery, I find myself reducing my self to needing to look better than women, whom to be honest when my brain works, I find unattractive both in what they are doing (acting like they love being degraded and nothing more than a penis receptacle) and that their bodies look fake.

But then I find myself reducing my husband too. When I'm in trauma mode, and to be honest a lot of the time when I'm thinking about things but haven't let it go full blown, I'm reducing him down this man I abhor who looked at porn. The betrayal is bad enough for me, for our marriage, but if I can pull myself out and look at it one day at a time, his acting out was a very tiny portion of any given day, a few minutes at the end of the day. No it's still not ok on any level for me, but I find myself forgetting about all the rest of him but what he did in that tiny portion of time. In the scheme of our marriage a drop of poison is enough, but if I am going to make an effort to stay in this marriage, to make it new, I'm going to have to find a way to stop reducing him down to all of that. I don't know how to yet but I'm aware that it is going to have to happen because if he can stay clean then my action of doing this, even though he broke me and destroyed me, is going to eventually morph from a trauma reaction to an act that hurts him and wrecks the chance of a new relationship.

 

I'm interested in reading your work on this. I'm also curious if there could be also some kind of unconscious aggression developed towards women in real life who are not cooperating like the women do for "them" in porn. Like if I look at my son who is 8. I know he's never seen porn, heck he's never even seen anything pg-13 at this point because we don't do screens beyond like pbs at this point plus some e rated nintendo, plus we homeschool (I want my kids to stay kids as long as they can). So no other messing up going on here. But let's say he's done enough school to earn some mario. He's ok while he's playing it. But when it's time to end, he's a mess with temper. That temper continues for days - everything can make him rage and all he wants is to play more. But I notice his tolerance of interacting with other people goes way down and he gets very angry at whomever is not bending to what he wants. Could the same thing be happening with these men who use porn? I've certainly noticed that over the years my husband, who when I met him could spill a soda and be super chill about it, getting so angry and cranky over stupid things. So I wonder if it's not just possibly making them more aggressive to the women in real life they are sexual with, but also with being more aggressive towards women in general because they are not instantly gratifying their reward center.